This idea has been rolling around in my head for a while, and it recently solidified.

I think that this is the biggest difference between men and women: Men are only valued for what they do, while women expect to be valued for what they are. Evolutionary reasons, certainly, but kind of the whole point, here, is that we are supposed to be past that. But how do we get past it?

Women, generally, are capable of having children. Whether they take care of them or not, whether they maintain relations with the father is irrelevant, even whether they feed and clothe and house them decently is only problematic in extreme situations; motherhood is the highest social status available, and can only be taken away through serious neglect or harm. Just the ability to create more people excuses many sins.

Men have no such innate value. One man can impregnate many women, so there are spare men around with no value to society other than their labor, and even ESPECIALLY fathers are expected to work or else they are regarded poorly. Even having a job, though, only brings a man up to a minimal status level; that is the absolute least that is expected, and earns no gratitude or respect. The only way for him to earn gratitude or respect is through risking his life; fighting in a war, running into a burning building to save a child, climbing up a tree to save a cat, jumping off a building to get Youtube views... it doesn't have to be a good reason to risk his life, he just has to risk it.

Now, this creates more than just the obvious problem. What is chauvinism but refusing to respect women for their innate value, i.e. expecting the same from them as you expect from a man? And, of course, from a purely physical perspective, your average woman cannot perform the same amount of labor as your average man. It's not fair... but it's not fair either way! And I don't see any way to fix it.

What it comes down to is the question of what basis we use to judge. We cannot use different standards, because that is not fair, but then, we cannot use the same standard, because that is not fair!

We are stuck with this dichotomy, and we are going to have to figure out a way to deal with it.